this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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i think sport, exspecially in schools, should always be mixed. Also i think the competetivness of american school sport is kind of toxic, it should be about having fun
Ultimate Frisbee did this by forcing a certain number of boys/girl per team. If you don't impose that you end up with a boys team anyway at high level.
Girls' teams exist entirely to guarantee girls a number of slots, on the presumption that on average in most sports once you hit puberty generally the boys will start to dramatically outperform the girls due to things like size, upper body strength and other traits that are broadly connected to testosterone levels. Then you have things like chess, where you still have a women's league, but that basically exists because "not enough" women play chess and the notion is that a smaller talent pool broadly means easier competition that will in turn be more approachable.
Mixed teams in school sports as a general practice won't happen unless specific minimums are mandated, because it would impact competitiveness.
At the same time, under Title IX, if there is no girl's team and a girl wants to play a sport she must be allowed to try out and must be allowed to play if she can pass try outs. The reverse is not required under current interpretations, leading to a weirdly discriminatory interpretation of a law banning discrimination.
This is basketball, a sport that rewards tallness. By eighth grade boys are on average taller than girls. Even before you look at other gender differences, girls would be at significant disadvantage.
Many/most people are competitive, and competitiveness doesn’t have to be toxic. It’s fine for you not to be competitive, but people are, and it’s unreasonable to ask them to repress that part of their personality
can everyone play basketball in us schools (if they offer it) or is this like limited (i mean tryouts?)
It’s going to depend on the school and level
Given this example of eighth grade basketball, my kid technically had tryouts but everyone made the team. It was a small school though, and bigger schools may be different. He came in cold, not knowing the game but is a natural athlete. He had fun and learned the game and that one year was enough. I pushed him to play this year because he had been interested, he had a bunch of friends in the team, and he is an athlete. Importantly he’s not really tall enough for basketball, so eighth grade was likely his last chance to play. (It was funny to watch his crew of three soccer players and a hockey player take over the team and try to adjust their skills to a new sport)
Sports tends to get competitive in high school, especially for varsity teams, but there are usually options. For example my kid made the varsity soccer team after competitive tryouts. Part of the competitive nature was encouraging the kids to play competitive club soccer in the off season. To secure his starting spot, my kids spent the off season lifting weights, gaining about 30 lbs of muscle while cutting any remaining fat. Yes it was competitive. But he also joined a town league and a rec league for fun off season because he just loved playing: non-competitive, no tryouts
At the middle school age range, girls are typically bigger and stronger than their male peers. Boys don't catch up until 14-16, at which point they rapidly put on height and mass to exceed their girl peers.
And what about it? It's been demonstrated within equality movements that statistical biological strength corresponding to sex does not always correspond to actual performance.
Mixed sports will allow a more inclusive learning style, which technically will allow a greater variety of skills to be develop and more opportunities for the future.
Depends heavily on the sport and the quality of coaching. Direct contact sports - football in particular - present real risks to the players when there's a big disparity in size and strength.
But then there's an argument that middle/high school contact sports shouldn't be allowed to begin with, precisely because of the risk of injury.
So what you're essentially saying is we should make decisions based on the individuals weight class rather than gender?
That would be the logical thing to do.
Although, even then no public school should be sponsoring full contact sports, full stop.
Yeah, that will work out well. I cannot think of a sport that is played in school that would fair to the girls if all sports were mixed teams. By the time kids are 13-14 years old, the boys are starting to get to be bigger, taller, faster, and stronger. And the disparity only gets worse as they age.
And one of the driving tenants of sports IS to teach competitiveness.
Why should we be teaching competitiveness? That’s how you turn society into individuals who only look out for their own needs and are apathetic when you do things like a fascist coup. Oh wait…
Nah, I’d much rather be teaching kids cooperation.
(Sports are still great, but not for the reason of teaching competitiveness).
Competition is literally the basis of almost every sport. How would hockey, for example, be played without competition?
I’m saying we shouldn’t teach competitiveness as a value in and of itself. Competition in sports is fine.
In my school we had boys the same age who had a foot of height and 80 pounds of weight difference between them. There are better ways to divide competition other than gender.
Yep. I was 6'4" by the time I was a junior in school and I had a large physical advantage is sports. But size isn't the only advantage either. Skills and co-ordination with team members matter more.
I feel like that could be fixed by just doing a weight class so gender does not become the factor but overall strength and that also gives the opportunity for weaker boys to play sports and not get boxed out in boys only sports and stronger girls "like girls with PCOS" to not dominate girl Sports.
Or maybe it’s already fixed by larger schools having multiple teams, such as varsity, Jv, freshmen. Or different leagues, like rec leagues, town leagues. Or gym class sports which are never competitive.
But it’s ridiculous to think it fair if the high level teams are essentially all boys, and the girls are stuck on the crappy team with boys who can’t play. No one will be happy with that
The kids WILL turn everything into a competition no matter what you think you are doing to prevent that. Humans are naturally competitive. Like it or not.
In my experience, it's the parents that need to make every Little League Rec scrimmage into the final game of the world series.
Are you the kids?
I used to be. And it's been a longass time since I was. But I have raised 4 kids AND I have taught math in a school. Kids, and all humans for that matter are competitive. From skipping rope, to running, to racing lawnmowers, to bake offs, and gardening. Humans have an incredibly wide streak of competition.
No but he has been a kid, we all have. We are literally all experts in this field assuming you weren't home schooled or avoided all extra curriculars.
My initial question wasn't about individualistic viewpoints. The question is, are you an expert In knowing others intentions other than yourself?